Medicare For All (But At What Costs)

Strike up the band.  The House SOCIALIST-Democrat BRAVO SIERRA PARADE is about to begin again, featuring such gaudy and insulting floats as Higher Taxes (so that more of your money can be shared with those who don’t work, including illegals); Open Borders (so that greedy, evil, capitalist America can finally be erased from the world map); Eliminate ICE (so more criminal illegals can terrorize at will); Green Energy (green, as in federal subsidiaries to camouflage the fossil fuel replacement charade); any number of other destructive and/or illegal ideas, like sanctuary cities and forcing President Trump from office; oh, and Medicare For All.

Concerned about providing medical care for all members of their growing-by-the-day, future illegal-immigrant voting block, the SOCIALISTS (adding the word Democrat is now redundant), once again in control of the House, will make it a priority to permanently screw up the best medical system, medical innovation, and expertise in the world, by turning the control of our nation’s comprehensive medical care over to the Federal Government, a huge, about to get much bigger, bureaucracy that is far too unwieldly, collectively-minded, and politically-entrenched from a past administration, to efficiently administer something so central to, and imperative for, the continued health and well-being of America’s  citizens, as individuals (not numbers).

There are abundant problems with this universal Medicare threat.  For starters cost.  Estimated to exceed $30-trillion over a ten-year period (bound to increase through those years due, at the very least, to population growth and inflation), experts have concluded that even by jacking income taxes way, way up (high enough to produce pain, rather than relieve it), America’s still could not raise enough money to pay for this gigantic albatross, let alone having enough funding left for vital government programs, like defense and social security (for retired Americans who worked decades to finally collect on this forced ‘investment’).  So, then, cost alone is a deal breaker, if anyone with common sense is listening in either the House or Senate.

Next, with Medicare For All (MFA), realize that all employer and private health insurance plans would disappear.  Employers might not mind, given their cost, but insurance companies are sure to raise holy heck.  With the financial muscle and lobbyists that the latter has, should the dark day come when this medical care wrecking ball actually becomes reality, the insurers may have enough political clout to force the retention of voluntary private supplemental health plans for those who desire such, and can afford them.

Then there’s the matter of physicians and hospitals.  Remember the famous “you can keep your doctor and your health plan,” promised by that carnival barker.  Supposedly, doctors and hospitals might retain their independence, initially.  But complete SOCIALIST medicine will eventually, if not immediately, require that all doctors and medical facilities become federalized, as is the case in England and Canada, for example.  How many current physicians, especially highly training surgeons and other specialists, and how many bright students considering medical school, will knowingly and willingly choose to become federal employees, with federally-controlled incomes?   We have a doctor shortage now.  Imagine it getting worse, much worse under MFA.

And that ties into the final (for now) concern should MFA somehow become the law of the land.  Between doctor shortages, and now everyone (citizen and illegal alike) heading to doctor’s offices and emergency rooms, for even the slightest ailment (because it’s ‘free’), the reasonably ready-access to health care that we’ve all experienced (and taken for granted) throughout our lives, will be a thing of the past.  Offices will be jammed.  Appointments harder to get, in anything approaching timely fashion.  And waiting times for the specialized treatment of more serious illnesses will be extended to the point where some patients may get much worse, or actually die before getting that vital care.  If you think lengthy waiting times for specialized treatment must be fiction, dig into patient experiences with long delays, for specialized care and procedures, in both Canada and England.  You’ll find they are non-fiction. All too real, and painful for patient and care-giving family members alike.  Thus the reason that those who can afford it, whether from Canada of other socialized medicine countries, come to the United States for specialized care, and do so without health insurance (unneeded back home).  They come here on their own dime to avoid long wait times and to gain specialized American medical expertise.

Connected with that general bottleneck of too many patients and too few overworked medical providers, is, for senior citizens especially, the word that no one who is seriously ill or currently healthy (as far as they know) ever wants to hear: RATIONING of care.  Between the crunch of patients, office visit delays, and the ever-spiraling-upward cost of care, there will very likely become a time, for elderly patients (even, potentially, selective, seriously ill younger persons), when specialized treatment and care for serious illnesses will need to be denied.  Actually denied. Certainly, regrettably, from the doctor(s) standpoint, since they are on the front-lines dealing with such patients face-to-face.  But as you’d expect, with no regret from anonymous government accountants and actuaries looking constantly at medical cost analysis charts (screens) locating far, far away from any patient contact.

Imagine that elderly patient, your Mom, Dad, or other close relative, being denied further care (“you’ve lived a good, full life”), and being sent home with pain killers to deal with that serious illness alone or with close family. Get as angry as you like, write all the letters you like. It’s tough to buck government budgets, and especially with hometown doctors being held federally accountable, since they are now under government supervision and control.  Oh, how we don’t ever want to reach the point in America where we are told, at your age, and in your condition, you’re not worth ‘wasting’ time, resources, equipment, and treatment on, because you’re simply too old and “after all, we’ve all got to die sometime.”

If we ever get to that doomsday point, we’re no longer the America that we know and fully expected to spend all of our days in.  At the point where human compassion gives way to dictatorial fiscal computer screens, we are reduced to the level of robots.  And, no question, robots will get better care and repairs.

It is imperative, for the reasons mentioned, and no doubt more, that Medicare For All never sees the light of day.  If it happens, there’s no going back to our present system of private care, where the individual still matters.  It would be far to difficult, if not impossible over time, to unwind the smothering, collective, government control. MFA would be permanent.  The House SOCIALISTS are in love with the idea of ruining our best-in-the-world health care system and expertise.  Hey, let’s be like socialist Europe!  We must depend on the Republican-controlled Senate, and ultimately President Trump, to over-ride any attempt to impose Medicare For All, here, in our America.